Peoria Bridge Plunge Kills Three
A dramatic accident on a bridge in Peoria has killed three construction workers.
Reporter Ed Hammond, of CBS News Radio affiliate WMBD, says a scaffolding apparently gave way at about 8:30 a.m., plunging five construction workers into the Illinois River, some 50 to 60 feet below.
A sixth man dived into the river, hoping to save the bridge workers.
"These guys were up on that platform and it shifted and fell," says Peoria Police Chief John Stenson. The cause of the accident had not been determined, according to Stenson.
A marine boat, an underwater rescue team and two ambulances were called to scene at the McClugage Bridge and within 90 minutes pulled three of the bridge workers out of the water, along with the man who dived in hoping to save them.
They were taken to OSF Saint Francis Hospital, where spokesman Chris Lofgren says one of the workers arrived with no heart beat and could not be revived. Another was impaled in the abdomen on a metal pipe; surgeons are working to repair the damage. Another worker suffered facial and possible head injuries and has been admitted to the hospital for observation. The man who dived in the river was treated for hypothermia and released.
The two other bridge workers were dead when rescue workers were finally able to reach them. Peoria County Coroner Dan Heinz says their bodies were found when a crane pulled up a pile of platform wreckage buried about five feet below the water's surface. "They got the scaffolding out and that's when they found them."
Assistant Peoria fire chief Roy Modglin says the rescue effort was complicated because mud and silt in the water made it impossible for divers to see anything. "What they were doing, they were doing all by feel."
Authorities are withholding the names of the victims until the families have been notified.
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